News for March 4th 2011

Ok, so it’s time for the news. I was going to have a review of the Orb TV for you, but I ran into some issues with it, so give me a couple more days to work them out. I’ll have something for you later though that’s for sure. Right now though read the news from the rest of the world.

Storage Related:

Patriot Xporter XT 32GB Review @ XSReviews Review Link: http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/drives/patriot-xporter-xt-32gb/Quote: "Having just fired out a review of their SSD, today I’m picking up the mantle of another Patriot review. This one’s the 32Gb variant of their Xporter line of pen drives. It’s only USB 2.0 so I’m not expecting mind blowing performance, but Patriot have said that this one has "200x performance speed", so it’s gotta be fast, right?"

Quote: "Just couple weeks ago we have reviewed a USB3.0 PCIe card which is an upgrade option for enjoying the USB 3.0 blazing speed (10x faster than USB 2.0) without emptying the pocket by getting a new set of hardware. Today we will bring another USB 3.0 upgrade item but it is for laptop instead of desktop with ExpressCard slot."

Kingston 64GB SSD (ssdNOW V Series) Review @ BURNED iN LINK: http://www.burnedin.com/review/kingston-64gb-ssd-ssdnow-v-series-reviewQUOTE: Today we are going to be taking a look at the Kingston 64gb SSD. It doesn’t come with the blazing new Sand Force controller or a huge storage capacity but we are going to dig until we find SOMETHING the drive can go home and brag about. This drive has been on the market for over a year, with packaging in many different disguises. But other than some exterior changes, are we getting anything new compared to a year ago? Are we getting the same ol’ stuttering JMicron controller or did Kingston really upgrade the controller for real world use? Let’s just see, shall we?

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Patriot Torqx XRB 64GB SSD Review @ XSReviews Review Link: http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/drives/patriot-torqx-xrb-64gb/Quote: "One problem plaguing those that want an SSD at the moment is that there really isn’t an option for those without deep pockets. There’s no way getting round it, SSDs are expensive. However, you can help alleviate this wallet pressure by getting one without too much storage space. Today we look at one of the smallest available SSD sizes, a 64GB from Patriot known as the Torqx TRB. Let’s see how it holds up against the bigger boys. "

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Is Intel’s 522 Series ‘SandForce Driven’ SSD Next To Be Released? @ The SSD Review

OVERVIEW: Lets begin this article by conceding that it is abound with speculation and based upon much more balance of probability than concrete fact. In fact, the closest we have come to confirmation is that all to familiar ‘echo of silence’ when we posed the question to “in the know” SSD industry associates, many of whom could have simply provided a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to our question. Has Intel and Sandforce teamed up to introduce a new Intel SSD?

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Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 6GB (3x2GB) PC3-12800 Kit Link: http://www.bigbruin.com/content/smarttracer_1Quote: The Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 6GB (3x2GB) PC3-12800 kit is very stable and offers solid performance. The extra features that Crucial have added to their standard Ballistix sticks not only give the consumer more bang for the buck, but make this a very attractive kit, considering that they’re priced right in line with other 1600MHz triple channel kits.

QUOTE:"Apacer is known for their industrial products in the US, but in Australia and the rest of the APAC region their consumer product line competes with many of the big names that compete globally. Apacer offers many product types, from USB hubs to media players and flash products. Their latest offering is what is putting Apacer in the TweakTown spotlight today; an ultra fast SandForce based SSD that rivals those coming from the US. The Apacer TurboII-Series AS602 ships with one of the best accessory packages we’ve seen to date, and the drive itself has the best aluminum case we’ve seen since the Patriot Inferno. There are two distinct packages for the AS602; a desktop upgrade kit that includes 2.5" to 3.5" drive rails and a notebook upgrade kit that includes a USB to SATA cable that makes cloning your existing drive with Acronis (included) easier. Both packages also include a rubber drive surround that adds extra drive protection and keeps your drive from being scratched."

“These new Patriot Gamer 2 modules sport an aggressive aesthetic and sleek black heatspreaders. The really interesting thing is this 8GB kit only costs $105, one of the least expensive on the market in this speed range. Larger capacity, attractive styling, and a great price……are these Patriot Gamer 2 modules the next big thing? Let’s find out.”

Quote: Hard drive docks are not a new thing but they have always been severely limited by the transfer rates between the drive and the computer itself and as such it makes it very hard to do any form of backup within a sensible timeframe. While it is not essential to back-up every file on your computer regularly it is pretty important to keep a ever-increasing amount backed up. For me, it is essential to have all of my ‘My Documents’ backed-up and I have always aimed to do this on a weekly basis. However in recent months this collection of files has grown to well in excess of 20 GB which may or may not sound a lot but this size is not that uncommon between regular computer users, especially those of us who play a ‘few’ computer games and do have quite a wide taste in music.

Heading the charge is Corsair, a company you all are likely familiar with as they are one of the industry’s leaders in DIMM manufacturing. Corsair recently released the new Vengeance line of high performance DDR3 just prior to that of the P67 chipset. Thanks to Sandy Bridge being built with a much better memory controller than the socket 1156 and 1366 processors, the socket 1155 variants are capable of improved memory performance and running a higher frequency, all the while doing so without breaking a sweat. The kit we will be taking a look at from Corsair today is the Vengeance model CMZ8GB3M2A1600C9. When broken down this equates to being an 8GB kit(2x4GB) of DDR3, running at 1600MHz, with a CAS latency of 9.

Quote: There couldn’t be a better time than the present to purchase an SSD, and on the same token, it’s also a strange time. Performance drives cost the same as budget drives, and a perfect example of this is Corsair’s Force F90. It’s priced-right, offers incredible performance, and makes perfect use of its SandForce SF-1200 controller.

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Audio / Video:

Quote: "We were very impressed by the number of different ways you could call up content with FyreTV BoXXX. I’m actually surprised we don’t see more of this type of business model with mainstream media streamers. The FyreTV BoXXX has some great ideas to deliver content, but I guess we shouldn’t be surprised since the “Adult Entertainment” industry has been ahead of the technology curve for some time. Whether it was for mass marketing of content, the push to move to DVDs from VHS, or 3D high-definition content, the Adult Entertainment industry has always been on the forefront of using new technology to deliver their content…"

Quote:We recently looked at one of Arctic’s latest headsets, the P311 which was designed for use with Bluetooth devices such as smartphones, tablets and notebooks. This provided a great compromise between portability, functionality and price so we’re excited to see how their top of the range gaming headset performs.

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Mobile Related:

Lenovo ThinkPad T510

Conclusion: “The solid build of the ThinkPad T510 make it a good traveller, but it is weighty and battery life is not as good as it could be. The keyboard is a pleasure to use, though some may find the range of options and combination of TrackPoint and Touchpad a little overwhelming. If you are lured by the low price, hold fire. You may well find you need to upgrade a fair few elements to get the laptop that suits you best. Nonetheless, in sheer performance and usability terms we have to concede that Lenovo has kept up the good work with its ThinkPad T510 and produced another good addition to a great series.”

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iHome iP1 Studio Series Audio System for iPhone/iPod Review

The iP1 Sound System with iPhone/iPod dock from iHome sports a very modern look and comes with enough power for most home users; the Bongiovi DPS sound enhancement is also present on this unit like it was on the iP49, along with an extra set of speaker faces, Component Video output and Line-in jack for using it with different external sound sources, without the need to have an iPhone/iPod plugged in at that time. http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1000140

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Tablets of 2011: What to Look Forhttp://www.techspot.com/guides/362-tablets-of-2011/Last year promised to be the year of the tablet, and at least for Apple, it was indeed. The nearly ubiquitous iPad managed not only to outsell every other tablet on the market by a wide margin, it also exceeded Mac sales in the last quarter. But even if Apple is not likely to lose its throne anytime soon, competition is finally making itself present. If Android’s gains in the smartphone market serve any indication it should be an interesting year for tablets as well. We’ve compiled a comparative table with what we consider are the hottest tablets either currently available or announced so far. Rivals such as Motorola and LG are coming on strong with the first Android "Honeycomb" tablets, while Research In Motion is launching the PlayBook using a completely reworked operating system based on QNX Neutrino. HP will start to see the fruits of its Palm acquisition when it launches the TouchPad, the first webOS-based tablet, this summer.

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Assorted Stuffs:

CEBIT 2011 – Kingston 24GB HyperX T1B, HyperX SO-DIMM 2133MHz OC @ Vortez CONTENT: You may have already seen the Kingston 24GB HyperX T1 video already. Kingston have been preparing this kit for the X58 chipset and had a live demo of this 24GB kit installed on the new GIGABYTE G1 Assassin. LINK: http://www.vortez.net/review.php?id=297

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CEBIT 2011 – XFX unveil triple display stand with HD 6990 and DIRT 2 @ Vortez CONTENT: XFX unveiled a new product to capture gamers attention at CeBIT 2011. We saw the outshowing of an innovative design by them that will help those with multi-display setups to enhance their configuration with a new "Triple Display Monitor Stand". This stand is designed to support up to 3 monitors each up to 24" in size. Height, angle and rotation can be adjusted to the gamers needs and delivers further functionality via 2 USB2.0 ports and audio jacks for hooking up your favourite headset. LINK: http://www.vortez.net/review.php?id=296

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Lexmark Genesis S815 All-in-One Printer Review

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t exactly had the best of experiences with Lexmark products in the past. Many years back, I went through two less than stellar Lexmark printers. I was unhappy with the print quality, print speed, and overall build quality. To be fair, they were remarkably cheap and I guess I got what I paid for. Fast forward many years later and I suppose it’s time I get Lexmark a fair shot at a second chance. In this review, I take an in-depth look at the Lexmark Genesis S815 all-in-printer. Let’s just say that it has more than a few unique tricks up its sleeve to win me over again.

VirtualBox 4.0 OpenGL Acceleration Leaves Room For Improvement @ Phoronix Direct Link: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=15743Summary: "VirtualBox, the Sun/Oracle virtualization platform, has supported OpenGL acceleration and Direct3D acceleration within virtual machines for more than two years. When the host system has hardware GPU acceleration, OpenGL/Direct3D calls can be passed from the guest to the host when the VirtualBox guest driver is installed. There has been the Linux 3D support since VirtualBox 2.2 and was initially limited to OpenGL 1.4 support and in the summer of 2009 it turned to OpenGL 2.0. We had not delivered any early benchmarks as the initial support was too buggy, but even with the recently released VirtualBox 4.0, while the support is usable and stable for the most part, it is still far from being very efficient and will crash under some OpenGL software."

OVERVIEW: Right on the heels of our amazing news regarding Intels upcoming release of the Intel ‘SandForce Driven’ SSD, capable of parallel 500MB/s transfer speeds, The SSD Review is hosting the largest site giveaway we have seen yet on the Internet!! Its no trick!!! On April 1/2011, we are going to draw from all eligible ballots and some lucky winner is going to win a BRAND NEW Intel i7-975 Extreme Processor valued at over $1000.

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OvisLink AirLive N.MINI 300Mbps Wireless-N Mini-AP review

The AirLive N.MINI AP multifunctional device (Router, AP or Client) from OvisLink has very small dimensions and can be used in various situations like building a small hot-spot in an area that has only Ethernet available, or we can use it as a regular Wireless LAN adapter, connected to our computer via UTP. http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1000142

Quote: "A few years removed from the start of the economic crisis, people are still experiencing the effects to this day, but thankfully things are starting to slowly improve. When something of this extent hits, people come to realize that they need to alter their lifestyles in order to adapt to the economic crisis.

CEBIT 2011 – MSI Military Class II, Big Bang Marshall, N580GTX Lightning, AMD HD 6990 @ Vortez CONTENT: The big push for MSI this year is Military Class II. Which if you haven’t heard of, is a brand exclusive. Many manufacturers classify their products as being military tested, military standard. The truth is that this only applies to certain components such as capacitors when we are talking motherboards. Only certain aspects are tested to military standards with other brands, but with MSI the entire board is military tested, not only the capacitors or specific components. LINK: http://www.vortez.net/review.php?id=295

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CEBIT 2011 – ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Essence One @ Vortez CONTENT: "As you would imagine with only Sandy Bridge being the new platform to really take precedence in Q1 2011, ASUS didn’t have any new Republic of Gamers motherboards to really show off besides the current lineup. There were of course the existing Sandy Bridge boards with the new B3 revision though and a new family member to the current range, featuring a new chipset – Z68." LINK: http://www.vortez.net/review.php?id=294

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Early Benchmarks Of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion @ Phoronix Direct Link: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=15737Summary: "By now you have likely read all about the features announced for Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" thus far along with seeing plenty of screenshots and videos showing off Launchpad, Mission Control, Versions, the improved mail client, and much more. But how does Apple’s next-generation operating system perform? Well, here is a look at the performance of Mac OS X 10.7, including what are likely the first public benchmarks of Mac OS X Lion."